Thursday, November 13, 2014

Tonight's Sky for November 13: Leonid Storm (1833)

In
November, 1833,
meteor showers were recognized, though their exact origin had yet to
be determined at that time. Through centuries of observation,
scientists and amateur sky watchers noticed that showers always
seemed to take place on the same dates over the course of decades. In
time, the showers became known by the name of the constellation from
which they seemed to radiate from. So, when meteors started to appear
from the constellation Leo in the middle of November, no one was
surprised.

Then came the morning of November 13.

On
the night of the 12th, many sky watchers noticed that there seemed to
be an unusually high number of meteors in the sky heading into the
morning of the 13th. Suddenly, as if someone turned on a switch, the
sky filled with meteors to the tune of, according to the high
estimates, over 200,000 per hour! That translates to over 3,000 per
minute or, even more mind boggling, 50 meteors per second. All across
North America, people were woken by their bedrooms suddenly becoming
filled with light (the electric light was over 40 years in the
future) thanks to the light of all the meteors. Now, the kicker: this
lasted for 4 hours until the Sun started to rise.

Needless
to say, reactions to the shower, which just about turned day into
night, were quite varied. Naturally, those well-versed in the
sciences were excited as no meteor shower of anywhere near this
magnitude had ever been seen before. On the other hand, for a lot of
the less well educated, panic ensued as many thought that Judgment
Day was at hand, that the stars were falling, and that the earth
would soon be destroyed.

As night gave way to morning,
some of the meteors were so bright as to be seen by day, a true
rarity for meteors. However, while the shower lasted only about 4
hours at its outburst phase, its implications were much more
long-lasting as this event, more so than any other to that time, did
much to drive knowledge and make the study of meteors and meteor
showers a true scientific study.